Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Lee Fang: REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS BUY HEALTH INSURANCE STOCKS AS REPEAL EFFORT MOVES FORWARD (The Intercept)
JUST AS THE HOUSE Republican bill to slash much of the Affordable Care Act moved forward, Rep. Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican and member of Speaker Paul Ryan's leadership team, added a health insurance company to his portfolio.
Marc Dion: Corner Store Fourth of July (Creators Syndicate)
On the Fourth of July, I was very American. I had the day off, and I barbecued in my front yard. I cooked steak, chicken and sausage on the grill. Then, we all sat in brown plastic lawn chairs and ate.
Hadley Freeman: Brooklyn Beckham got a book deal on merit? Pull the other one (The Guardian)
Nepotism is inevitable, but self-entitlement is toxic, which is why it is essential to call out this kind of crap.
Zoe Williams: "Fit in my 40s: 'The brute fact is, something must be done'" (The Guardian)
This, for anyone who hasn't tried being 43, is the reality of the second half of life. Things change. Senses diminish. And the brute fact is, something must be done.
Deborah Orr: I took my first antidepressant this week. The effects were frightening (The Guardian)
The number of people with mental health problems is soaring, and the crisis-ridden NHS cannot cope.
Emma Brockes: "Zoe Kazan: 'There's so much sexual harassment on set'" (The Guardian)
Zoe Kazan is no stranger to Hollywood: her parents, boyfriend and late grandfather Elia all found fame in the industry. Now it's her turn - and she's doing it differently.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
wrote:
replied:
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Thanks to Stuart and Cynthia. Linda says--NYC society rejected him long ago. Now he has moved his rejection to the world level. Yet he still can't figure out what he does to bring it on himself. Ineducable.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda (& Stuart & Cynthia)!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
INTO THE DUMPSTER!
"THAT IS FIRE, NOT SMOKE."
STOP THE DICTATOR!
STOP THE DICTATOR! PART TWO.
THE WORLD HAS NO EYES FOR GAZA.
THE EVIL (MOTHER-FRACKERS)!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot, humid, and yes, I'm extra cranky - was up way too late.
Documentary Is Fake Claims Expert
Amelia Earhart
An upcoming documentary airing Sunday on the History Channel titled "Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence" planned to rewrite history by shedding light on Amelia Earheart's mysterious disappearance, but an expert on Eartheart claimed on Wednesday that the documentary is a fraud, according to TMZ.
Ric Gillespie, the owner of The International Group For Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), an organization that investigates Earheart's disappearance, claims the famed aviator isn't present with her navigator Fred Noonan in a blurry photo that the documentary believes to be real.
While there are many theories that have emerged regarding Earheart's disappearance, Gillespie and TIGHAR don't stand behind this one.
Gillespie, who has known about the photograph that the History Channel reveals it evaluated for about a year in the upcoming documentary, told TMZ that "there were a lot of mercenaries in that area at the time ... so it could be any white woman in the pic - the features aren't recognizable."
It's worth noting that the photo also doesn't match smoothly with the documentary's captive theory. Gillespie clarified that "none of the alleged captors [in the photo] have guns or look threatening." Two Caucasians pictured appear to be engaging in casual activity, hanging freely on a pier at the Marshall Islands.
Amelia Earhart
Cancels World Premiere
Bolshoi
Russia's Bolshoi theatre announced Saturday the cancellation of next week's world premiere of a ballet about Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev, staged by a top director who has been questioned in a high-profile criminal probe.
"Nureyev" was set to premiere at the Bolshoi on Tuesday in one of the most hotly anticipated stagings of the season. But in a shock move, the theatre said the show has been indefinitely postponed.
The ballet is being staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, a theatre and film director who recently was questioned and had his home searched in an investigation into alleged embezzlement of state funding for the arts.
One of Russia's most innovative and successful directors, Serebrennikov has previously staged a ballet based on Mikhail Lermontov's "Hero of Our Time" at the Bolshoi.
The Bolshoi said the dress rehearsal scheduled for "Nureyev" on Monday had been cancelled, and the premiere set for Tuesday has been "postponed to a later date" which was not specified.
Bolshoi
Arrested In Georgia
Shia LaBeouf
Actor Shia LaBeouf has been released from a Georgia jail after posting $7,000 bond on charges of public drunkenness.
The Chatham County Sheriff's Office says the 31-year-old was arrested in a hotel lobby at 4 a.m. Saturday by the Savannah Police Department and released.
He also faces charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction.
Police say LaBeouf asked a bystander for a cigarette and when he was refused, he became disorderly, "using profanities and vulgar language in front of the women and children present." When he was told to leave, police say he refused and became aggressive toward an officer. He ran to a nearby hotel to avoid arrest.
Shia LaBeouf
'Death in the Ice'
John Franklin
A new major London exhibition aims to solve the 170 year-old mystery surrounding the disappearance of British explorer John Franklin in the Arctic's icy waters.
"Death in the Ice" retraces Franklin's final expedition to discover the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, since its departure from Britain on May 19, 1845.
Franklin and his 128 crew members were last seen in July of that year.
The two ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror sunk in the Artic, and were only found in 2014 and 2016.
The ships' fate didn't become clear until 1859, when a vessel chartered by Franklin's widow came across a somber message on King William Island that revealed that Franklin and 23 crew members had died on June 11, 1847 in unspecified circumstances.
John Franklin
Fiery Rhetoric
California
California's emergency services director fired off a sharply worded letter to the U.S. Forest Service this week that said the agency had stiffed local governments $18 million for fighting wildfires on federal lands last year and raised the prospect the state may stop protecting national forests during blazes.
"I cannot continue to support the deployment of resources to protect federal land that ultimately may bankrupt our local governments," Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said in the letter sent Monday to Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell.
The dispute stems from longstanding commitments that coordinate and reimburse firefighters for work on federal lands. Nearly half the land in California is federally owned, and the greatest percentage of that is in National Forests.
Wildfires are fought with a combination of local, state and federal firefighters working under mutual aid agreements that often send them hundreds of miles from home. Massive encampments that sprout up at big wildfires include bean counters who tally the costs of fighting fires and figure out how to reimburse the many agencies helping out.
But Ghilarducci said the federal government was shirking its responsibilities to reimburse local governments by illogically relying on a "sudden interpretation" of a 1955 law that prevents the government from paying volunteer firefighters.
California
Hopes To Eliminate Some Federal Agencies
T-rump
The Trump administration aims to further tighten its grip on spending, issuing a memo Friday that calls for eliminating some federal agencies and cutting government jobs as part of the upcoming fiscal 2019 budget.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney (R-Bought) wrote in the memo to agency and department heads that the goal is "ensuring that the federal government spends precious taxpayer dollars only on worthwhile policies." He added that the 2019 budget would be a "comprehensive plan" to reduce the number of government workers and merge or terminate federal agencies as requested by an executive order signed in March by President Donald Trump.
The guidance follows on the spirit of Trump's 2018 budget proposal initially outlined in March. That blueprint would sharply reduce spending for Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, among other programs. Even Republican lawmakers called the cuts draconian and have said the proposal was unlikely to survive intact in Congress, which is writing legislation to fund government agencies and departments.
The White House budget plan also gave ammunition to Democrats who said that Trump had turned against his own supporters in the industrial Midwest and rural counties. The budget reduced funding for infrastructure, small regional airports and an environmental cleanup program for the Great Lakes.
T-rump
Alabama Senate Race
Roy Moore
As former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore (R-Bigot) runs for U.S. Senate, he doesn't shrink from telling voters he has twice been ousted from the bench for defying federal courts over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage.
Instead, he wears those rejections as a badge of honor.
Moore tells Republican voters in the blood-red state that they are akin to battle scars for standing up for what he believes.
The fiery, outspoken jurist is part of a crowded GOP field vying to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions' (R-Racist) old seat in the U.S. Senate. Moore's iconic status in the culture wars gives him a strong GOP voter base and makes him a leading contender in the Aug. 15 primary.
But he's also a polarizing figure. Some voters said they are voting for him because of his past fights. Others said they want someone else for the same reasons. Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen, who filed the complaint that led to Moore's removal, last year referred to him as the "Ayatollah of Alabama" for intertwining his personal religious beliefs and judicial responsibilities.
Roy Moore
Building Housing In Silicon Valley
Facebook
The shortage of housing in California's Silicon Valley has gotten so severe that Facebook Inc on Friday proposed taking homebuilding into its own hands for the first time with a plan to construct 1,500 units near its headquarters.
The growth of Facebook, Alphabet Inc's Google and other tech companies has strained neighbourhoods in the San Francisco Bay area that were not prepared for an influx of tens of thousands of workers during the past decade. Home prices and commute times have risen.
Tech companies have responded with measures such as internet-equipped buses for employees with long commutes. Facebook has offered at least $10,000 in incentives to workers who move closer to its offices.
Those steps, though, have not reduced complaints that tech companies are making communities unaffordable, and they have mostly failed to address the area's housing shortage.
The 1,500 Facebook housing units would be open to anyone, not just employees, and 15 percent of them would be offered at below market rates, the company said.
Facebook
Aztec Trove
Mexico City
A sacrificial wolf elaborately adorned with some of the finest Aztec gold ever found and buried more than five centuries ago has come to light in the heart of downtown Mexico City, once home to the Aztec empire's holiest shrines.
The quality and number of golden ornaments is highly unusual and includes 22 complete pieces - such as symbol-laden pendants, a nose ring and a chest plate - all made from thin sheets of the precious metal, lead archaeologist Leonardo Lopez told Reuters.
Held in a stone box, the cache was discovered in April near the capital city's bustling main square, the Zocalo, behind the colonial-era Roman Catholic cathedral and off the steps of what was once the most important Aztec ceremonial temple, now known as the Templo Mayor.
Not long after the roughly eight-month-old wolf was killed, it was likely dressed with golden ornaments as well as a belt of shells from the Atlantic Ocean, then carefully placed in a stone box by Aztec priests above a layer of flint knives, according to Lopez.
The west-facing wolf represented Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec war god and solar deity. Wolves were believed to help guide fallen warriors across a dangerous river in the netherworld.
Mexico City
In Memory
Nelsan Ellis
Nelsan Ellis - famous for his role as Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's "True Blood" - has passed away at age 39, Variety can confirm.
The actor died after complications from heart failure.
Born in Harvey, Ill. in 1977, he and his siblings were moved to Alabama to live with their aunt before Ellis decided to move back to Chicago at age 15. At 17, he joined the Marines, but quit shortly after. After studying at Illinois State University, Ellis went on to get his B.F.A. from Juilliard, where he just so happened to be a class above his eventual "True Blood" costar, Rutina Wesley.
After a single season on Fox's "The Inside" opposite Rachel Nichols and Adam Baldwin and an episode of "Veronica Mars," Ellis was then cast in the role that would define his career - gay short order cook Lafayette Reynolds.
After 80 episodes over the span of seven seasons, Ellis walked away with a handful of sought after awards: Two Satellite Awards, an Ewwy for best supporting dramatic actor, and a NewNowNext Award for actor on the brink of fame.
Following the success of "True Blood," Ellis moved from TV to film, landing key roles in movies like "Get On Up," "The Stanford Prison Experiment," "Little Boxes," "The Butler, " and "The Help." Most recently, the actor could be seen in a lead role on CBS' "Elementary," including the just-wrapped fifth season.
Ellis is survived by his grandmother, his father, and his son, Breon, as well as seven siblings.
Nelsan Ellis
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